Valkyrie Rising

by Ingrid Paulson

  One quick glance around the bar told me I was hardly the only curious one. There was something extraordinary about those girls. Extraordinary and terrifying. I watched, transfixed, as, one by one, heads turned throughout the bar. Conversations faded into silence, punctuated by the occasional speculative whispers, until the bar was dominated by the obnoxious American country music pumping through the speakers and the loud guffaw of the man in the corner who was too drunk to notice anything except the pint of beer in his hand.

  The girls stepped forward, scanning every face as if they’d need to re-create each one from memory when they got home. If they noticed the effect they were having, they didn’t care.

  As she stepped to the side to get a better view of the booth in the corner, the first girl’s jacket slid open just enough to reveal a gun secured against her hip in a low-slung holster. There was a long serrated knife strapped to her calf by a thin leather cord that snaked all the way up her leg. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any weirder, a strange voice sounded in my head, one that was me and wasn’t me. Like it came from a new part of my consciousness I hadn’t had the chance to meet yet. It told me she was an expert with both weapons. Lethal. Her companion was similarly dangerous, but not nearly as skilled as the blond one. It was the way the other girl stood, bearing too much weight on her left leg. And her holster was half an inch too low. The fraction of a second she’d waste drawing her gun could mean the difference between life and death.

  And I had no idea where that knowledge came from. I’d never even held a gun. But the truth of it was undeniable. Seeing those girls was like pulling a muscle I didn’t even know I had. It stirred something that terrified and electrified me. I felt as if I was fully awake for the first time in my life.

  Then the rational Ellie weighed in, reminding me of where I was and how unbelievably strange this moment was. Especially when I glanced back at the lobotomized expression on Kjell’s face.

  “Is this some sort of local militia?” I whispered, watching the girls move toward the bar, their eyes scanning the room, ever vigilant. Kjell didn’t reply. He didn’t even acknowledge that I’d spoken.

  Before I had a chance to nudge Kjell back into the present, the drunk, guffawing man took three wobbly steps right into one of the girls, the blond one, and stumbled backward, dropping to one knee to catch his balance. He must have been stupid as well as drunk, because somehow he missed the weapons strapped to that model-perfect body. As he rose to his feet, he gave her a very thorough once-over. When his eyes finally reached her face, a lewd smile spread across his lips as he reached out and let his fingertips trail along her thigh.

  The blond girl’s retaliation was fast as lighting and every bit as deadly. She grabbed him by the hair. Her knee came up as she slammed his head down. There was a sickening crunch as his face met bone. The move was as graceful and smooth as a ballerina’s pirouette, but no one could mistake the brutal, incalculable force contained in those long limbs. Or the cold blood pumping through Blondie’s veins.

  The man crumpled at her feet when she released him, blood pouring from his shattered nose and pooling into a puddle on the floor.

  “Kjell,” I whispered. “Your medical training … shouldn’t you help him or something?”

  Kjell’s eyes never left those girls, even when I shook his arm hard, trying to snap him out of it. He was staring at them with an odd sort of determination. The set of his jaw told me that now he only had eyes for those two.

  “Kjell?” I repeated, annoyed and a bit scared when he swatted me away with one arm. “If you’re staying here to watch the ultimate fighting floor show, can you at least tell me how to get home? Can I call a cab or something?”

  When Kjell finally looked down at me, his eyes were as cloudy as opals. The boy at Graham’s party had looked the same way, right before he almost pushed me into the pool.

  As Kjell stared at me, his eyes cleared, and he recovered enough to remember his manners. “I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head the way you do when water is trapped in your ear. “I seem to have dozed for a sec.”

  Right. Years of hanging out with Tucker and Graham had taught me more than enough about boys and their attention spans. Particularly when supermodels were wandering around. Kjell was hardly in danger of falling asleep anytime soon with those two sirens in the room. But for the moment, his eyes were back on me. And I needed to seize the opportunity to secure my ride home. I wanted out of there immediately.

  I’d barely opened my mouth to speak when manicured, fire-red fingernails curled over his shoulder. One of the leather-clad bobsled girls was standing at his side, her lips framing a devastating smile.

  “How old are you?” she asked in Norwegian. It was one of the few complete sentences I knew. Hopefully, next she’d ask for the time or directions to the airport. But I had a feeling this conversation was about to soar past my repertoire of memorized phrases.

  “Nineteen,” he replied in a flat, monotone voice.

  Really? I thought. Graham would die. A nineteen-year-old boy had taken me out. To a bar. Even if the story was about to end with that boy ditching me for someone more in his age category, I almost regretted I’d never get to see the look on his face.

  The beautiful girl shifted closer as she trailed her fingers from Kjell’s shoulder down his chest, probing, as if she’d find buried treasure beneath his shirt.

  I had to admire the speed with which she closed in on what she wanted. But the way her fingers continued to expertly weave across his torso reminded me more of a butcher inspecting a side of beef than an attempt at seduction.

  I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. In light of the man still washing the hardwood floors with his blood, a groping session seemed ill timed. At home, the LAPD would be all over the place by then. As I glanced around the bar again, no one seemed particularly bothered by any of it.

  The catatonic expression had settled back over Kjell’s features, like he wasn’t fully cognizant of what was happening.

  The second girl joined her companion. She curled one hand over Kjell’s cheek and started saying something in Norwegian. It was about time, I thought. In my book, a few words of small talk ought to precede a full body massage.

  I caught the word doctor. Somehow they knew about medical school. Perhaps these were Kjell’s friends from Oslo? Kjell tipped his head to the side, watching the blond girl in absolute rapture. Beautiful as she was, it was wrong. So wrong. She pulled him two steps forward, leading him toward the door like a puppy on a leash. I knew I had to do something about it. I had to stop them.

  “Kjell, are you okay?” I asked, putting my hand on his wrist protectively.

  Instead of replying, Kjell glared down at me. Like he had no idea who I was or what I was doing there. But I held his gaze, steady and trying not to be frightened by the furious intensity in his eyes. He blinked, three times, fast, as if waking out of a dream.

  Frantically he dug for something in the pocket of his jacket—something small and silver. It looked like the tiny object my grandmother had dropped into his hand earlier that night. It was a small metal disk, with a series of raised lines and curves that resembled letters, only from no alphabet we’d ever learned in school. Kjell held it out in front of himself. Like a priest exorcising the devil. Except his eyes were firmly closed, clenched tight.

  His other hand reached out and found mine, his fingers snaking in between all the digits, squeezing so tight I thought my knuckles would pop like balloons.

  The blond girl took a step back, staring scornfully at the object resting on Kjell’s palm. Her hand flew out as if she was planning to snatch it away from him. But the instant her fingers touched metal, she whipped them back like she’d been burned. Then her eyes shifted to me. She looked me up and down as the strangest feeling flooded me, a surge of power and knowledge nipping at the periphery of my consciousness, fighting to get in.

  A slow, cruel smile spread across Blondie’s face. I felt as if I was an amusing, alb
eit annoying, pet. One that she was about to back over with her car. On purpose.

  She extended her index finger and pressed it hard against my forehead. My skin burned under her touch, but I was paralyzed by whatever current seemed to flow between us. And for a horrifying instant, it made me question whose side I should take in this encounter. After all, I barely even knew Kjell, and these girls were something truly remarkable. Longing filled my heart, a burning desire to go with them. To follow the blond girl anywhere she chose to take me.

  I fought against the intrusive urge, because it came from someplace that I didn’t trust. I grabbed her wrist but couldn’t knock her finger away.

  “Valkyrie,” she said in clear, ringing accents. The word unleashed a double roller-coaster ride of exhilaration in my veins. It was so foreign, yet so familiar, both the word and the feeling it trigged. The effect must have been plain on my face, because the blond girl smiled. While her expression was far from warm, it was the first thing she’d done that didn’t chill me to the bone.

  My hand flew to my forehead when the blond girl released me. The skin where her finger had been was still hot to the touch.

  Everyone in the bar was watching us by then—maybe because of the gorgeous supermodel who’d practically burrowed her finger into my brain, or maybe because they’d noticed that an underage American was in their midst. Either way, the eyes that met mine were a strange milky white. I swallowed hard, fighting back panic, as I realized that Kjell and I were alone with those lunatics in a room full of vacant, slack faces.

  The blond girl said something else, a torrent of angry Norwegian that left me confused, breathless. “I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head. “But I think you should leave.” After a moment, I added, “Blad.” I’d either told her to leave or called her a car.

  “How fascinating that you exist,” she said, switching languages effortlessly. Her accent was different from that of everyone else I’d met in Norway. Antique. Like she’d studied English three hundred years ago. “Information so valuable that I’ll forgive you this once.”

  “Astrid,” her friend said, a protest brewing in her voice. Something flashed between them as their eyes met. I felt the silent argument roll back and forth the way you can sense motion in the water even when it’s far away.

  Astrid glanced from me to Kjell as if weighing her options. So I took a step in front of him, like I’d actually be able to protect him from those two if they were determined to hurt us.

  “No.” Astrid surveyed my defensive posture and gave me a patronizing half smile. “Let her live. There’s no justice in punishing the ignorant. And they understand just enough to carry an important message home.” She locked eyes with me. “Consider this a one-time courtesy.” The last word stuck to her tongue as if it were the vilest combination of letters in the dictionary. “Next time you won’t be so lucky. When I hunt, I kill anything that gets in my way—predator or prey.”

  Astrid turned on her heel and strode toward the door without hesitating and without looking back. Her friend fell into step behind her but cast one last angry glare in my direction. Their boots pounded against the hardwood floor in unison. With military precision. It was the only sound in the bar other than my shallow jackrabbit breathing.

  The moment the door closed behind them, Kjell leaned forward onto the counter and exhaled as if he’d been holding it in for an aeon.

  “I can’t believe that just happened,” he whispered. He stepped forward, putting his hands on my shoulders. “I don’t know how you did that. But thank you.” Then he kissed me, quickly, so lightly, on the lips.

  “You sure?” I challenged, keeping my tone casual and hoping to distract everyone from the fact that all the blood in my body had just relocated to my face. “Tuck, er, my friend, would scream at me right about now—say that I got in his way when he could have gotten laid.”

  “Laid?” Kjell made the word sound even dirtier than it was. “Is that what you think was happening?”

  If there was one thing I couldn’t stand, it was being talked down to. “I don’t know what to think,” I said frostily. “And I really don’t care. I just want to go home.”

  “I see.” Kjell was looking at me like I was four years old, which was the other thing I couldn’t stand. “Didn’t your grandmother tell you about the rumors? Your brother arrives tomorrow, right? After what happened here tonight, he’ll need to be very careful.”

  “What rumors?” I asked. “And what do Graham and my grandmother have to do with you picking up girls?” I said it even though I was beginning to realize that there was more at stake here, there were deeper implications that I couldn’t even begin to grasp. Like denying it would make it go away.

  Kjell’s eyes widened in surprise. Or maybe it was disappointment. “It has nothing to do with picking up girls, and I think you know that. They would have kidnapped me if you hadn’t stopped them. I owe you my life.”

  “Dramatic much?” I pulled my hand away when he reached for it, alarmed by his sudden intensity. “Look, you don’t owe me anything,” I said. He clearly did owe me an explanation, but I was willing to wait until we were in the car, especially if he was going to act so peculiar in public. “Except maybe a ride home.”

  “Anything you say.”

  Fifteen minutes ago, he had observed a careful enough distance that I figured the age difference was too much for him. But those baby blues now told me they were seeing me in quite a different light. It was such a complete one-eighty that I couldn’t help wondering how much of it was beer goggles or some sort of misplaced gratitude for supposedly saving him. Either way, I didn’t like it one bit.

  Kjell’s blue eyes were still bright with excitement as he turned to Margit and Sven. “We should go.” In all the chaos of the last few minutes, I’d forgotten they were even there. “I believe you now,” Kjell said. “But we’ll be okay. Elsa just drove them off. She saved me. It was incredible. You saw, right?”

  Margit was glaring at me with so much loathing, I was surprised I hadn’t felt it, even with my back turned. Sven, who’d seemed nice enough before, was now staring at me like I’d just sprouted bat wings and a third head. I almost touched my shoulders to make sure I hadn’t.

  Kjell didn’t seem to notice their less-than-enthusiastic reactions. He was already pulling me forward. “Let’s get out of here.” As the people around us were shaking off the strange fog that had settled over their pupils, they started conferring in whispers. More than a few unfriendly faces had already turned my way. “C’mon, Margit, Sven.”

  “We’re not going anywhere with her.” Margit stood, shaking her head. “She’s one of them.”

  Kjell and I had reached the middle of the room, and Kjell fired back an angry torrent of Norwegian. The words were fast and furious, and I was surprised to find I could catch a few. Kjell was calling Margit stupid, demanding to know why I would have stood up for him if I was one of them.

  Whoever they were.

  The important part, the touching part, was that Kjell was begging Margit to give me a chance. I looked back at Margit, more curious about her reaction than anything else. Given the undercurrent of jealousy that had swept through the evening, I was pretty sure Kjell was making it worse by defending me.

  “Don’t you even look at us,” Margit snarled, covering Sven’s eyes with one hand. “You already have my brother. Isn’t that enough? Besides, Sven’s too young, remember? That’s what they said last time. You have to be eighteen.” She took four quick steps until she was right in front of me, dragging Sven behind her.

  “Too young for what?” I backed away, right into Kjell. “And I’ve never even met your brother. I just met you tonight.” I couldn’t believe I’d been stupid enough to get myself into this position. I was alone in a bar in Norway with a weird boy talking in riddles and a paranoid stranger who was preparing to wring my neck.

  Margit’s finger was in my face, practically poking my eye out. “She can’t be trusted.” She hurled the wo
rds at Kjell. “I told you. What she did proves it. She’s just like her grandmother.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I shot back, surprising myself yet again that night.

  Margit was dying to hit me. But that wasn’t what scared me. I was horrified by the image that flashed through my mind, courtesy of the new voice that had stirred to life inside me. My retaliation would be swift and brutal if she even tried.

  Sven shook his face free of Margit’s hand and grabbed Kjell roughly by the shoulder.

  “We can’t let you leave with her,” Sven said. “You’ll thank us for this tomorrow.”

  “Back off.” Kjell knocked Sven’s arm away and shoved his chest, just hard enough to send him back a few paces.

  Margit pulled the personal locator beacon out of her pocket.

  “Don’t you dare,” Kjell hissed.

  But without even hesitating, Margit pressed a flat red button on the front. This time, a red light on the top blinked to life, flashing in time with my thundering pulse.

  “Turn that off,” Kjell said, taking a step toward Margit and making a grab for it. Sven blocked him. “You’re gonna have the Royal Navy out looking for you,” Kjell said. “That’s not a toy.”

  “No,” Margit said. “We changed the frequency to one the navy won’t pick up. You can’t pretend this isn’t happening now,” she added, suddenly all smug self-satisfaction. “You’ve seen it too. No more thinking you’re so much better than us, Dr. Perfect back from Oslo, acting like you know everything.” The tangible resentment in her words surprised me and made me wonder if I’d been misreading Margit’s behavior all along. Because bitter wasn’t the best way to sweet-talk your crush.

  “I know what I saw,” Kjell said, rubbing his forehead with his palm. “But that doesn’t mean Ellie’s part of it. She has no idea what’s been going on.”